“She wasn’t just my daughter, she was my friend,” sobbed Karen Jennings mother of X Factor dancer Andrea Roach who succumbed to her spinal injuries around 8 am yesterday while still in the Intensive Care Unit at the GPHC.
The 21-year-old leaves to mourn her mother, father, two older siblings, her nieces and nephews and her many friends.
Roach popularly known as ‘Stacy’ sustained her injuries while practising dance moves on the stage at the National Park on August 1 after the emancipation show. According to reports, a male dancer threw her into the air as part of a dance routine but unfortunately she was not caught and fell on her neck. She was rushed to the hospital and placed in ward ‘C’ but transferred to the ICU after her condition took a turn for the worse. An MRI scan done on the Monday following her fall showed that the C5 and C6 joints of the young woman’s spine were dislocated and the spine was also ‘pinched.’
Jennings related to Stabroek News that when she visited the hospital yesterday morning she attempted as she usually does on her visits to speak to her daughter. However this time her eyes were closed and the only indication that Stacy was hearing her were the tears seeping through her closed eyes. Seeing that her condition seemed to have worsened, Jennings did not leave the hospital after the visiting hour was over. Instead she waited outside while the doctor made the customary checks. Afterwards she went back into the ICU and held her daughter’s hand as she usually does and she eventually glanced up to the monitors on the life support machine where “flat lines” indicated there was no heart beat. When she looked at the nurse who was approaching, her worst fears were confirmed by the shake of the nurse’s head.
Jennings said that all through her hospitalization Stacy was fully conscious.
“There was nothing wrong with her brain, she was always aware of who was visiting her” Jennings said. The young woman would attempt to speak but the tubes in her mouth prevented her from doing so. “She would communicate with her eyes and we would try to read her lips,” Jennings related. Even when her body started to swell she was still conscious of everything around her. Jennings said that she had the premonition that something dreadful would have happened after she visited Stacy yesterday morning and “bloody fluid was coming out her mouth.” Jennings said that a female doctor told her that the fluids that resulted in the swelling of Stacy’s body had gotten into her organs, but she still hoped against all odds for a miracle.
The grieving mother related her disbelief that something her daughter loved so much would result in her death. “She bought a motor cycle lately and I was so concerned that she would end up in an accident, I would worry about all sorts of things happening to her, not knowing that her death would have come like this,” Jennings mourned. “What hurts so much is that my daughter was so healthy and active… she wasn’t even sick.”
“She was my friend, wanted me to go out with her everywhere, if I don’t agree she would get her friend to persuade me…I gon miss my daughter,” Jennings cried.
Meanwhile Jennings said that she accepts that what happened on emancipation evening was an accident, but said the she would have appreciated if the young man who failed to catch Roach had shown a little more concern at her daughter’s condition. She also stated that she believes the doctors at the hospital did all within their power for her daughter and acknowledged the care and interest the nurses of the ICU showed toward Stacy.
She explained also that the family had wanted take Stacy to Trinidad for health care but were told that her heart rate was unstable and that she could not withstand travelling.
Jennings recounted the many good times they shared together; Stacy celebrated her 21st birthday recently and got her brown belt in karate two weeks before her accident.
A post-mortem examination is expected to be done today.
